People Are Sharing Just How Cold Canada Got This Winter, And Here Are 30 Chilly Pics

In the middle of the month, a polar vortex was sweeping in from the Arctic through the West, while a storm swirling up from Texas was wreaking havoc in the East, leaving millions of Canadians facing snowstorms or severely cold temperatures. 

At one point, roughly half of the country was under extreme weather warnings.

"We've got really, really, really cold air coming down from the Arctic in the west. And then in the East, we have this really potent weather system that's coming up from the south," Jesse Wagar, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, said at the time.

According to Wagar, in the wintertime, the country does get dynamic weather patterns, but these were "pretty unusual."

"Some of the temperatures that we are seeing in Western Canada, not only is it incredibly cold compared to what we've seen recently, but they're record-breaking temperatures in general," Wagar added.

However, things are changing. Above-than-normal temperatures should begin to spread into parts of Western Canada beginning Tuesday.

While we're not looking at all-time, record-breaking warmth for January, the thaw should be pretty long-lived.

By next week, an even stronger heat signal will see daytime highs sitting above the freezing mark as we start the month of February, possibly kicking off the snowmelt for parts of the country.